Bracken MacLeod

A row with a boyfriend leads to unexpected and bloody consequences...A high powered CEO undertakes a highly unusual therapy to take his career to the next level...A mother frantically searches for her child as the world burns...Featuring new fiction by Adam Millard, Matt Shaw, Bracken MacLeod, John Boden, Duncan Ralston, Rich Hawkins, Glenn Rolfe, George Daniel Lea, Tim Curran, WD Gagliani & Dave Benton and Kristopher Rufty.A charity anthology.Edited by Jack Bantry & Kit Power

Splatterpunk Fighting Back

Closer to 3.5 stars (actual average is about 3.3).

Overall notes: some gems in this collection for sure, but it really suffered by only having male contributors. Several stories had themes of rape/sexual assault (whether purposeful or not) and I just got really tired of reading it after awhile. There was only one story, "Melvin," in which I think it was handled decently well, even though the beginning could be REALLY triggering to some people. Female perspectives would not only have been welcome in this anthology, but would have been necessary to make it a good collection in my book. However, it was only $1 and was for a good cause, so it was definitely worth the cost, and I have a couple new authors to check out thanks to this!

Now, on to the individual reviews for the stories (mild spoilers throughout, heavy spoilers are cut):


  They Swim By Night - Adam Millard

I...have a lot to say about this one, so bear with me. There was a heavy vein of misogyny throughout. (view spoiler)[The men in the bar "couldn't help themselves" as they masturbating furiously and publicly while a beautiful singer performs. Oh, but the woman is a siren! Suddenly it's supposed to make sense, and yet I feel that the masturbation is unnecessary to show how captivated the men are by the siren, as that's done very well without the added masturbation. Oh, but they can't help it, since they're sirens! Except...the main character realizes what he's doing almost immediately and stops himself from following suit, which makes him an apparently decent guy. Plus, as far as I'm aware, sirens in mythology don't make men furiously masturbate in public, they just captivate and draw the men to them, so that was really iffy for me. Despite the dude's supposed decency, he later is worried that the singer is "owned" by men and that's how she can afford the penthouse, so even this "decent" dude is misogynistic. Then, the siren drugs him, sexually assaults him, and then devours the poor sap w/ two other sirens. Like, of course this was where it was going, but the drugging and sexual assault was not necessary. (hide spoiler)] I could have liked this a lot better, but I had a bad taste in my mouth from the start of it with how (view spoiler)[the siren (hide spoiler)] and the men were portrayed. Needless to say, not my thing. The concept itself wasn't totally terrible, it was just severely mishandled in my opinion. 2 stars.


  Melvin - Matt Shaw

Started off very rapey and disturbing (serious trigger warning on this one), but I'd say (view spoiler)[having the offending rapist's dick run over by a van (hide spoiler)] redeems it. 4 stars.


  Extinction Therapy - Bracken MacLeod

A Black Mirror episode in short story form and a tale of toxic masculinity and bloodlust. Would love a novel version or a sequel where (view spoiler)[Spencer gets what's coming to him. (hide spoiler)] 4.5 stars.


  The Passion of the Robertsons - Duncan Ralston

Great story about religious zealots who take their worship to obsessive and sinful heights. The very end was awfully ham-fisted on the author's part though. I agree with the narrator/author's point at the end, but some things are better off inferred rather than explicitly stated. I didn't feel that the framing device for the story with the narrator in first person was necessary, as it didn't add any depth to the story. 4 stars.


  Hellscape - Rich Hawkins

Not bad, but pretty underdeveloped. Felt like I was coming in at the middle of a story, and nothing was really explained at all. 3 stars.


  Molly - Glenn Rolfe

Pretty fun story about a woman and her murderous doll. Would be interested to see more of this one. Could have done w/out the male author writing lesbian sex scenes though, especially since one of them was a "predatory lesbian" who got the other woman drunk to sleep with her (and it's not vital to the story either, which is why I didn't spoiler cut this). 3.5 stars.


  Only Angels Know - George Daniels

...no idea. Hated the writing style, it was far too ~artistic and abused semi-colons and ellipses like there was a punctuation quota. Tried reading this twice, and still have no idea what happens, aside from some vague ideas. 1 star.


  Limb Memory - Tim Curran

Delightfully gross yet ridiculous and a bit humorous, one of the best stories in the collection. 4.5 stars.


  Feast of Consequences - WD Gagliani & Dave Benton

Reminded me of part of a Criminal Minds episode (which was actually referenced in the story) but took a hard left turn at the end to make it truly bizarre and unexpected. 4 stars.


  The Going Rate - John Boden

Hmmm. Very interesting concept but far too short to have much of an impact. 3.5 stars.


  Darla's Problem - Kristopher Rufty

(view spoiler)[Ouija Board releases a monster that eats/destroys people (and of course, rapes women with something massive and destroys the genitals of men, both for seemingly no reason). (hide spoiler)] Started strong, but not much payoff. 3 stars.

Splatterpunk Fighting Back

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